Starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner and opening in theaters across the country tomorrow, Arrival is a preternaturally stylish and smartly spiritual addition to the canon of films about aliens with questionable intentions landing here on Earth. While the script delicately addresses the anxiety that some might feel were such an event to occur, the sets explore the potential for beauty in all its forms. Adams’s character, Louise, a university professor, teaches in a classroom impressive in its Brutalist architecture and lives in a midcentury-modern dream house, but it’s the movie’s high-art take on the extraterrestrial spaceship and language that make it a visual masterpiece. Production designer Patrice Vermette walks us through the film’s otherworldly design.

Is it liberating working in the sci-fi genre where you get to invent something completely new? Designing a science fiction movie had always been a dream of mine. Being offered to create the visual world of the movie adaptation of Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life” [on which the film is based on] was a precious gift that we all felt the need to take good care of.

How did you make it your own? Meetings between mankind and an alien civilization from outer space have been portrayed in numerous films throughout the years—some more inspiring than others—so we all have some preconceived idea of what an alien ship should look like. We wanted to take a different route and explore various shapes. After all, we are talking about a world that is supposed to be alien to us. Theoretically, there is a good chance that we only have very little in common with their species. I have to acknowledge the open minds and support of our producers in trusting us to explore new worlds.

Photo: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

What was it like working with director Denis Villeneuve? Denis is a cinematic poet. With his unique sensibility, he's an explorer of the human soul. It’s an absolute joy to collaborate with him on many levels. Arrival represents our fourth collaboration. What I like about working with Denis is his open-mindedness. He thinks outside the box and always wants to go beyond what is normally expected. He is a strong storyteller, a team player, and an extremely nice human being.

How did you collaborate? Our process has always started the same way. After reading the script, I start collecting images. They could be from books, my personal library, the internet—anything that came to my mind while reading the script—from installation art to macrophotography to architecture. At this point, it’s strictly an emotional response to the written words. I then assemble these images into mood boards. Then Denis and I start exchanging ideas and brainstorming about which visual directions the movie should be taking. It's a strange, cerebral, and instinctive mash-up—one that I also thank set decorator Paul Hotte and my supervising art director Isabelle Guay for sharing their passion for this project with us.

What was your vision for the ship? The spark of the idea for the shape of the ship came from Denis. He had come across a photograph of a strange exo-planet outside the solar system, an oval planet. So this set the ground for the exterior appearance of the spacecraft. It would have to be alien to our civilization. We played a bit with the oval shape, slimmed it a little, made one side concave. The dark charcoal color is made to look like a somewhat polished stonelike surface.

It’s interesting that the ships float off the ground. We then made the decision that the 12 identical ships would hover 28 feet from the ground in a delicate state of equilibrium. They traveled across the universe but restrained themselves from actually landing. They would come to us, but we would need to make the last effort to get in touch with them—so close but yet so far. Is humanity ready and willing to make the effort?

Photo: Jan Thijs/Paramount Pictures

What else did you consider? We also wanted to contrast this alien technology with our modest effort to access them. The military and scientific teams would approach the alien shell, sitting in the back of white pickup trucks, and would then need to step into a scissor lift in order to access the portal and go up the ship’s dark shaft. A matter-of-fact approach was taken to ground the story in reality.

What went into creating the ship’s interior? The decision to make the ship vertical created a challenge for us. That found its resolution when we imagined that there could be a change of gravity once we entered the ship. This would necessitate that the teams take an extra leap of faith. Our scientific and military crews would need to open their minds just a little bit more before meeting the aliens. So they’d jump off from what is left of their world into a gravity shift that would bring them to the bottom end of a dark corridor. At the end of that tunnel, there would be a bright light to guide them. Again, the idea was to create mixed emotions of danger and fascination.

The confined space is very imposing. The wall texture was created to resemble sediment rock, as this long corridor represents the layers of the history and wisdom of the alien civilization. At the end of this tunnel, the light guides us to a large room where the teams finally encounter the aliens. We wanted that main chamber to remind us of a classroom, as it was important for us to create subtle connections between the aliens and Louise. We also wanted to create a contrast between the peacefulness felt inside the dark interview chamber of the ship and the chaos felt inside the white military tents. There had to be a soothing James Turrell–like atmosphere felt within the alien chamber.

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